The present disclosure relates to methods and apparatus for recovering contaminants from a body of water.
Liquid hydrocarbons, such as oil, are one of the most frequent contaminants that are the subject of clean-up efforts. Oftentimes, releases of such hydrocarbons take place on or near a body of water resulting in the necessity of recovering the hydrocarbons from the body of water. While the liquid hydrocarbons are often initially concentrated on the surface of the water, over time, the liquid hydrocarbons become emulsified and begin to sink becoming dispersed both over a larger area and vertically within the water column.
Skimmers, which vacuum the top layer of liquid on a water body, can be effective when the hydrocarbons are still highly concentrated at the upper surface of the water body but as the liquid hydrocarbons become dispersed different methods are necessary to reclaim the liquid hydrocarbons.
A variety of absorbent and adsorbsent materials for capturing hydrocarbons have also been developed. For example, U.S. Pub. No. 2013/0240451 A1 entitled APPARATUS AND METHODS FOR REMOVING CONTAMINANTS FROM A LIQUID by Curtis, Jr. et al., the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference, discloses an open cell foam structure that can be used to adsorb oil from a body of water even when the oil is no longer highly concentrated at the surface of the body of water.
U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 61/987,600 filed on May 2, 2014 by LaCrosse et al. entitled SPILL REMOVAL METHOD AND SYSTEM, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference, discloses a system that provides for deploying oil-adsorbing blankets in a body of water to capture oil located in the water. LaCrosse et al., US 2015/0315760 A1, is the publication of a related application and the disclosure of this publication is also hereby incorporated herein by reference.
While many of the existing technologies are useful for remediating environmental contamination, further developments in this area remain desirable.